BSBPMG522A Learning Guide V1

BSBPMG522
Undertake Project
Work
Learning
Guide
Northern Sydney Institute
Northern Beaches
Learning Guide
Table of Contents
Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................. 2

Introduction to the Learning Guide ..................................................................................................... 3
Introduction to Project Management .................................................................................................. 3
Topic 1 Define the Project.................................................................................................................... 5
Topic 1 Activities ................................................................................................................................ 13
Topic 2 Develop the Project Plan ....................................................................................................... 19
Topic 3 Administering and Monitoring the Project ........................................................................... 43
Topic 4 Finalise the Project ................................................................................................................ 66
Topic 5 Review the Project ................................................................................................................ 75
References.......................................................................................................................................... 82
Bsbpmg522 Learning Guide V1

Page 2 of 82 Revision Date: 11/04/2013
Learning Guide
Introduction to the Learning Guide
This learning guide has been designed to cover all subject matter for BSBPMG522 Undertake
Project Work. The topics follow the project lifecycle and the elements in the units of competence.
Introduction to Project Management

What is a project?
A project is a sequence of activities that is intended to achieve a unique purpose. Projects are
different from ordinary daily work activities. Most projects are done only once.
For example, a Human Resources (HR) Manager would monitor staff training and professional
development and record this information in staff records. This would be ordinary work. However,
if the head of the HR department requested that the HR Manager plan, design and implement new
OH&S training for all staff, then that would be a project.
Five features that differentiate projects from ordinary work are that they:
 have defined beginning and end dates
 have a unique purpose with specific objectives that meet the client goals and requirements
within specified quality and performance criteria
 use resources, such as money, time, people and equipment that have been allocated to the
project
 usually follow a planned and structured approach to meet their objectives
 have a primary sponsor or stakeholder that provides direction and funding.
Projects can be simple and easily handled by one person or large and complex projects requiring
many resources and the specialised skills of a dedicated project manager.
What is project management?

Project management is about striving to meet specific time, cost, quality and resource objectives
for projects. At the same time it must facilitate the entire process so as to meet the needs and
expectations of all people affected by project activities.
Project management is about making change through the use of techniques, tools and resources
that manage change throughout the life of the project.
General management skills

Managing projects is more than simply listing tasks and entering them into a computer program. It
is about managing people and resources to ensure the successful completion of the project.
Like all management activities, managing projects is based on sound general management
principles, so that all activities of a project are managed in order to achieve a desired goal on time,
and within budget.
These general management principles include:
 planning the objectives, work estimates, work schedules, and budgets to reach the project
goal

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 organising the people and initiating the activities needed to complete the project
 assembling all the necessary resources needed to complete the project (as per your plan)
 controlling the project, by tracking and monitoring the progress against the initial project
plan
 leading the project team
 communicating, which involves creating a reporting structure to ensure that all
stakeholders and other interested parties receive timely and proper information during the
life of the project.
What makes a good project manager?

Project managers need strong management skills to be able to lead people, to communicate,
negotiate, organise and plan, solve problems, influence people, analyse, set goals, listen to people,
motivate people, and achieve targets.
A project manager must focus on leadership and teamwork skills to lead the team in the most
effective way to achieve the project goals. They must use their communication and political skills
to build positive relationships that enable them to understand and meet stakeholders’ needs and
expectations.
A project manager must also have good organisational skills, to be able to plan, analyse, set and
achieve project objectives, work plans and schedules.
Organisations employ specialised project managers because they have skills in collectively
managing aspects of a project including:
 the budget
 the schedule
 the team members
 stakeholders
 functional managers (other managers within the organisation)
They do not manage a permanent department like functional managers do. They manage a given
team over a given time period. Then, with a new project, they do it all over again with a different
team, budget and schedule.
The 5 phases in a project

There are five general phases in a project:
1. initiate phase
2. plan phase
3. organise phase
4. control phase
5. close phase.

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During each phase, you need to use the principles of general management needed for that phase.
This usually involves using a set of controlled steps and procedures to ensure that each phase is
completed satisfactorily. The following table shows the main activities that are required in each of
these five general phases of a project life cycle. They usually are grouped into:
 planning processes, and
 implementation processes.
This topic takes a close look at the initiate phase.
Major activities that occur during each project phase
Initiate Plan Organise Control Close

Define the Develop detailed Obtain necessary Lead and support Complete final
overall project task list resources the team deliverables
goal
Identify all Estimate all task Recruit necessary Establish control Write and issue
stakeholders, times and all personnel tools and final report, close
their needs and costs methods the accounts,
expectations hand over project
files
Identify the Arrange best Organise and Monitor the Release all
project sequence of all lead the project project plan and resources
objectives tasks team make any
necessary
corrective actions
Identify initial Develop Assign all project Assess and Obtain
work and workable tasks implement stakeholder
resources and schedule and change acceptance and
basic milestones identify critical signoff
milestones
Identify all Write detailed Communicate Prepare and Evaluate the
constraints, project plan and with stakeholders distribute status project
assumptions and obtain approval and all necessary reports
risks from parties
stakeholders
Topic 1 Define the Project

In the initiate phase you will:
 define the overall project goal
 identify all stakeholders, their needs and expectations
 identify the project objectives
 identify initial work and resources and basic milestones

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 identify all constraints, assumptions and risks.
Project scope
One of the most difficult aspects of project management is defining the scope of a project. The
word ‘scope’ means extent or depth. When applied to project management, it refers to how much
work there is to do.
The scope is all work needed to fulfil the project goals. It includes all the resources and processes
used to do this.
The project scope must provide a clear and refined description of:
 the project goal
 what is to be achieved
 how is it to be achieved
 who will achieve it
 when it will be achieved
 with what resources it will be achieved.
Once these have been determined, they are written down in a scope document.
A scope document shows the scope, or extent, of a project. Let’s look at the key sections and an
example of a project scope document.
The things you will find in a project scope document
Key sections of a scope document
Section Details
Scope statement This clearly states the project goal, objectives and deliverables. If it is not
specified in the scope statement then it is outside the scope of the
project and is not relevant. Project tasks should only address work that is
relevant to the project goal and objectives.
Project constraints These are any limiting factors that prevent the project from moving in a
particular path. Examples include:
 You have dependent tasks that impact on specific areas of the
project, for example, tasks that cannot begin unless another one has

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Section Details
started.
 You have a deadline that cannot be changed.
 The implementation work for a system upgrade can only be done on
the weekend, when staff are not at work.
Assumptions These are aspects that the project manager builds into the scope
document to allow for any uncertainties that may occur. Examples of
assumptions include:
 Fifteen new personal computers need to be purchased for the
project.
 All staff need yearly training in OHS.
 All resources for the project will be sourced from outside of the
company.
Tasks list You need to specify a list of tasks (and deliverables) to be achieved
during the project. They are all the activities that need to take place to
bring the project to completion. The deliverables include all the
documentation, reports, contracts and products that need to be
produced and signed-off on by those in authority.
Estimates (cost, You need to make initial estimates in relation to cost, time and human
time and human resource requirements. These identify the boundaries of the project to
resources) enable you to expand into the more detailed estimates that are needed
to develop the full project plan.
Contract This will include the names of those authorised to initiate contract work,
statement sign contracts and completion acceptances. It also includes any
contractual limitations and penalty statements for possible contract
variations. (Variations and penalties apply equally to the client and
providers.)
The following is an example of a scope document, in this case for a project to install animal litter
bins in local parks.
Sample scope document

Project Scope
Project Information (Please complete all)
Project Sponsor Project Name
Bob Smith Animal litter bins
General Manager

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Sponsoring Department/Client
Directive from Council Meeting
Parks & Gardens
Project Leader
Arens Sirkel
Scope the project
The project will encompass the installing of animal litter bins and bag dispensers in all council
parks. The bins and bags are to be purchased from Animal Litter Limited after
recommendations from neighbouring councils.
Description of the project
What is the vision? What will the finished product look like?
The animal litter bins will be installed in prominent locations in each park, while also being
close to entrances to allow efficient removal of waste by our waste management contractor.
Identify the strategic objectives which relate to this project
To reduce animal litter by encouraging owners to pick up after their pets.
Identify the main target audience
Pet owners.
What are the intended outcomes/deliverables of the project?
That pet owners will use the bags provided to clean up their pets’ litter and deposit the bags
in the bins provided, other bins or their own bins at home.
What are the particular aspects of the project?
Installation of bins.
Other comments
Collection of waste and replacement of bags has been contracted to our waste management
contractor.
A public awareness campaign will be conducted by council after the bins have been installed.
Proposed high-level project timeline
Phase Dates/Time Notes

Phase 1: Scoping and feasibility not required Directed by council, scoped by
General Manager
Phase 2: Planning 4 days
Phase 3: Implementation 3 weeks
Phase 4: Evaluation 2 days
Proposed high-level budget

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Detail proposed budget or financial constraints for the project.
Overtime wages/contractor payments $ 7,000
Bins & posts $ 15,000
Materials (cement, etc) $ 2,000
Annual bag replacement program $ 6,000
Annual additional charge by Waste Management Co. $ 18,000
Scope signoff
This scope has been approved by: Bob Smith_____________________ Project Sponsor
Department: General Manager Date_____/_____/_____
Use the scope document during the whole project

It is a good idea to revisit the scope document while the project is running, to check that the
project is meeting its objectives and to make sure that activities are within its scope.
During the plan phase you should use the scope document as a basis to expand into a detailed
activity list of the project deliverables.
Project sponsor
A good scope document will clearly define the project sponsor. The project sponsor is a key
stakeholder for the project. The sponsor is the person or organisation that has taken the idea for a
project and developed it into a structure, or who has identified the idea for the project and
initiated its further development.
The sponsor may be the manager, client, department or work team that has initiated the project.
The sponsor usually provides the resources and approvals for the project, and has the final say on
project deliverables, costs, schedules and risk.
Project stakeholders
Stakeholders are the individuals or organisations that are involved in, or may be affected by, the
project. These might include the project sponsor (company management, department head, client
etc), staff, contractors, suppliers, project team, external clients, government agencies and the
public. This group will vary greatly from one project to another.
There are always a number of stakeholders involved in workplace projects. For example,
stakeholders could include members of the following groups:
 employees, contractors
 unions and labour hire companies
 managers
 customers
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 suppliers.
Internal and external stakeholders

Stakeholders can be internal or external to an organisation, and beyond the main group of
interested parties, they can be quite diverse, depending on the nature of the project. The table
below lists some possible internal stakeholders and what their interest is.
Examples of internal stakeholders are as follows:
Stakeholder Details
Sponsor The person or business unit that initiated the project and provides
funding for the project.
Project Team The project manager and team members who carry out all of the
tasks required to complete the project on time and within budget.
Senior Senior management obviously have an interest in projects
management undertaken by their organisation, and their approval will be
required.
Functional They become involved when they are directly affected by the project
Managers or offer their staff to take part in the project.
Shareholders As they usually provide the funding they have a vested interest in
the success of the project.
External stakeholders can include:

 clients or customers
 industry
 steering committee members
 environmental associations
 media
 government representatives
 suppliers and contractors
 general public
 relevant interest groups
 unions
 end users.
Consider this example.
A new payroll system is to be put in place at Happy Pizza P/L. The stakeholders include:
 Happy Pizza P/L and its staff (who are paid through the system)
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 the tax office (that receives tax payments identified by the system)
 the bank (that makes the direct deposits into the staff bank accounts)
 superannuation funds
 unions
 other organisations receiving direct payments from the staff wages
 the company’s accounts and HR departments
 the project team
 the developer and vendor of the payroll system.
A good scope document will identify some of the stakeholders, but as the project manager, you
will usually need to do more research to identify all of them. This is important because:
 it allows all the parties that are affected by the project to be consulted before it has
progressed
 it ensures that all possible issues are identified, and factored into the planning
 it deals with any obstacles or concerns about the project.
The needs of stakeholders must be considered when setting targets and planning the attainment
of these targets. They may wish to make some contribution to the process or be involved in
discussions.
You will need to manage communication with all stakeholders to ensure that their expectations of
the project are appropriate and that their input is valued.
The impact stakeholders have on a project

Stakeholders in any given project play an important and continuous role in the life of that project.
They may be able to offer suggestions, describe the requirements of a project, evaluate a project
and provide extra funds.
Successful project managers are excellent communicators and develop good relationships with all
project stakeholders to make sure that their needs and expectations are not only understood and
agreed to, but are constantly met during the life of the project.
The project manager will perform a stakeholder analysis. The analysis will help identify all groups
that must be interacted with and all common interests, develop appropriate strategies for
negotiating competing requirements, and help allocate resources to accomplish project goals.
Stakeholders are important because have a vested interest in the outcomes of a project. This may
be because:
 they may have staff involved in work activities
 they have invested funds in the project
 their department will be using affected by the project outcomes.

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Project team responsibilities
As the project manager, you need to clearly identify the limits of each project team member’s
responsibility. Questions to ask include:
 What is the overall responsibility of the project manager?
 What is the responsibility of individual project team members?
 How will changes to project specifications, deliverables, scheduling, resource usage, and
other aspects of the project be managed?
 Who is responsible for each of these?
Each team member should have clearly defined responsibilities to ensure that they understand
what they are—and are not—allowed to do. Otherwise one person may go off and approve
changes that have not been authorised and cause the project to go in the wrong direction, go over
budget, or eventually fail.
Project reporting requirements

When you are developing or reviewing the scope of a project, make sure to include reporting
guidelines, such as when to report to the project sponsor, stakeholders and project team. (It
should be on a regular basis.)
There are a few different ways to meet reporting requirements; you may need to use several of
these methods together:
 hold project team meetings where each team member reports on the progress of the
project
 sponsor or stakeholder meetings where you report on the progress of the project
 provide written reports
 send email reports
 use the reporting facilities in any project management software you may be using.
Reporting requirements for a project are put in place to ensure that all those involved are kept up-
to-date with the project’s progress. They also provide the opportunity to report any changes or
unforeseen events. This means that such things can be rectified quickly—before they get out of
hand.
The important thing is that everyone involved has a clear understanding of their reporting
requirements, and that these requirements are met.
Relationship to other projects

A lot of projects are stand-alone and do not interact with any other projects. However, sometimes
an individual project may be related to, or have an impact on one or more other projects.
Consider Happy Pizza P/L—if the payroll system upgrade project is carried out at the same time as
an upgrade of the entire accounting system, then regular exchanges of information between the
payroll system project and the accounting system projects would be necessary to make sure that
each system is compatible with the other.

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Relationship to organisational objectives
Every organisation has a range of organisational objectives. Some examples might include
providing environmentally friendly products, supporting Australian companies, providing
outstanding customer service or providing cutting-edge technologies.
When developing or managing a project, you need to consider how it will fit within these
organisational objectives. For example, outsourcing the call centre to an offshore supplier might
cut costs, but will it meet the company’s objectives of supporting Australian companies?
Project resources
Resource planning is a critical part of project cost management. To estimate budget and control
costs, project managers and their teams must determine what physical resources (people, money,
time, equipment and facilities) and in what quantity they are required to complete the project.
Expert judgement and the availability of alternatives are the only real tools available to assist in
resource planning, but to help with this process ask yourself some questions.
 Will it be difficult to accomplish specific tasks in the project?
 Is there anything unique about the project that might cause problems in the future?
 Has your organisation done anything similar before? Who did the work?
 Does your organisation have staff, equipment and resources that are capable of doing the
job?
 Do you need to outsource some of the work?
 Does your organisation have any policies that might affect obtaining resources?
If the resources are not available within the organisation or easily obtainable from outside, then it
may not be a good idea to pursue the project any further.
Topic 1 Activities
Activity 1: In Class Project

As a class, work on the following scenario to demonstrate a project from start (initiation) to finish
(close).
TAFE has given the students of this class $20 per head for an end of year celebration. TAFE want
this money to be used to celebrate the successful completion of this Course. They have left it up to
the students to determine how the money is spent (the scope) but you must conform to relevant
TAFE policies and ensure TAFE is a major stakeholder in the project. Throughout this subject you
will put together a project plan as well as monitor and control and close the project.

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Activity 2: Workplace Activities

Research the answers to these questions in your own workplace or a workplace you are familiar
with. You can check your answers against the guidelines below, but naturally your answers will
vary depending the workplace.
Questions
1. Who are the stakeholders for your project?
Answer:
2. What concerns may these stakeholders raise?
Answer:
3. What are your responsibilities and level of authority as a member of your project team?
Answer:
4. What are the reporting requirements for your project?
Answer:

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5. Does your project have a relationship with any other project?
Answer:
6. How does your project fit with your organisation’s objectives?
Answer:
7. Does your organisation have the resources required to complete your project? If they are not
available from within your organisation, how can they be obtained from outside the
organisation?
Answer:
Check your answers
Question 1
Your list should include all those who are involved or affected by your project, including sponsors,
management, staff, contractors, suppliers, clients, etc. Think about the extent of your project so
you can identify all stakeholders.
Question 2
Think of the individual ways in which your project may affect these stakeholders and what
concerns they may raise. Consider issues such as:
 Will client orders be delayed?
 Will staff have to work additional hours?

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 Will routines be disturbed?
Question 3
You need to have a clear understanding of your power to approve budgets, project changes, and
time frames. If you do not have this responsibility you need to identify and consult with those who
do.
Question 4
In your response you should include a list of the reports you will need to prepare, to whom these
reports are sent, what they include and when they are due.
Question 5
A good source of information for this would be to ask managers across various departments within
your organisation and higher levels of management. If your project is part of a larger or related
project within your organisation, then establish how this might affect your project and identify
points at which your project team needs to communicate, or would benefit from communication,
with those involved in the other project/s.
Question 6
The best place to start is to review the mission and objectives of your organisation and think about
how your project is designed to meet these objectives.
Question 7
Think of all the resources you will need for your project, such as people, equipment, finance,
knowledge, and look at their availability from within your organisation.
When looking at procuring resources you should consider:
 What does the budget allow?
 Are there established links with resource suppliers?
 Do you need to tender these purchases?
Activity 3: Quiz
Use this quiz to check your knowledge of the project definition stage.
Question 1:
What is the main job of the project manager?
1. identify project tasks

2. produce a project management timeline
3. plan and manage the project
4. conduct project meetings

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Question 2:
People who are involved in or affected by project activities are
1. project mangers
2. project stakeholders
3. project steering committee
4. organisational employees
Question 3:
Which of the following characteristics are important for project managers to have? Select all
correct answers.
1. good communicator
2. strong negotiator
3. authoritative
4. able to set goals
5. works staff hard
Question 4:
A scoping document outlines the extent or depth of the project. True or false?
1. True
2. False
Question 5:
What is a project sponsor?
1. a company financially supporting then project

2. a group of company stakeholders
3. a key stakeholder who is responsible for reporting on the outcomes of the project
4. a key stakeholder who has developed the idea for the project
Question 6:
All stakeholders sign-off on the project outcomes. True or false?
1. True
2. False
Question 7:
Why is it important to allocate project team responsibilities? Select all correct answers.

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1. to prevent team members from doing tasks not allocated to them
2. to identify areas of staff weakness
3. to clarify who can provide support for certain project tasks
4. to better understand how tasks can be managed by stakeholders
Question 8:
Which of the following are common project reporting techniques? Select all correct answers.
1. project team meetings

2. stakeholder meetings
3. progress reports
4. email reports
5. reporting facilities in project management software
Question 9:
Projects should be designed to stand alone from other projects. True or false?
1. True
2. False
Question 10:
Project objectives should be aligned with
1. technical objectives
2. organisational objectives
3. staff development
4. business processes

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Topic 2 Develop the Project Plan
Once a project has been established and defined during the initiate phase the task of the project
manager, and others, is to formulate a project plan. It cannot be understated how vital this phase
of project management is to the final success or failure of the project. Typically, the better the
planning the better the project result in terms of it being on time, on budget and fulfilling the
projects objectives.

1. initiate phase
2. plan phase
3. organise phase
4. control phase
5. close phase.
This topic takes a close look at the plan phase.

Define the Develop a Obtain Lead and Complete final
overall project detailed task necessary support the deliverables
goal list resources team
Identify all Estimate all Recruit Establish Write and issue
stakeholders, task times and necessary control tools final report, close
their needs and all costs personnel and methods the accounts,
expectations hand over project
files
Identify the Arrange the Organise and Monitor the Release all
project best sequence lead the project project plan resources
objectives of all tasks team and make any
necessary
corrective
actions
Identify initial Develop a Assign all Assess and Obtain
work and workable project tasks implement stakeholder
basic identify critical signoff
milestones milestones
Identify all Write a Communicate Prepare and Evaluate the
constraints, detailed project with distribute project
assumptions plan and obtain stakeholders
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and risks approval from and all status reports
stakeholders necessary
parties
The plan phase

In the plan phase you will:
1. develop a detailed task list
2. estimate all task times and costs
3. arrange the best sequence of tasks
4. develop a workable schedule and identify critical milestones
5. write a detailed project plan and obtain approval from stakeholders.
You can use the scope document as a basis for the project plan but you will need to expand on it
and create a detailed activity list of the project deliverables.
Planning your project

To effectively plan and implement a project, you must remember that the project has:
 an overall goal
 several objectives
 a number of separate tasks attached to each objective.
Your job will be to identify all of these objectives and tasks, and turn them into an effective project
plan.
Now, consider the skills you will need to do this. As you develop your project plan you will find
yourself using these skills:
 Planning skills—to define the task list, estimate task times and task costs, define the task
sequence and timing.
 Communication skills—to help communicate and consult with staff, suppliers and
contractors to determine how long each task should take, as well as job functions during
the estimation process. These same skills will also help you to write the project plan and
get approval from the stakeholders.
 Skills in the use of project management tools—to assist in the development of the project
plan.
 Risk management skills—to identify and classify all project risks including OHS issues.
 Budgeting skills—to help estimate and cost the project.

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Project goals
Every project has a major purpose or direction. Once a project has been identified, the major
stakeholder or sponsor will make a clear statement of what they want to achieve. This is often
called the goal of the project.
The sponsor’s goal will be defined by end products or services the sponsor wishes to acquire. The
following are examples of particular project goals.
 Design and complete staff training on new OH&S regulations.
 Increase company sales by the end of the financial year.
 Relocate the company to new premises by next year.
Project objectives
To successfully complete a project, several major steps need to take place. These steps usually
represent the major parts of the project. These are the project objectives, sometimes called
milestones.
As the project manager you will work with stakeholders to identify the key project objectives for
the project goal.
Objectives are not actual work but are sub-goals that are used to focus work activities during the
life of the project. Objectives have outputs that are clearly defined in terms of results, goods, or
services produced during the project or at its completion.
These outputs are sometimes referred to as deliverables and may include reports, plans, products,
or even organisational changes.
It is extremely important to be precise about the project objectives because they are the
foundation from which the project plan is developed.
Project objectives can influence:
 the selection of the project team
 task definition
 task schedule
 resource allocation
 budget.
Objectives are also compared against outcomes at the end of the project and continuously during
the life of the project, to make sure that expectations have been met and that the project is
moving in the right direction.
Tasks
Once you have defined project goals and objectives you can begin to focus on the actual work
required to complete the project. This work is divided into tasks.
Tasks must be:
 clearly defined

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 prioritised
 sequenced, and
 scheduled.
Defining tasks
Task definition involves identifying all of the specific tasks and task activities for the project. A task
is an element of work that is contained in the work breakdown structure found in the scope
document.
Each task has:
 an expected duration
 an estimated cost
 resource requirements.
Task definition usually results in a very detailed work breakdown structure from which the project
team has a complete understanding of the work that is required to achieve the project
deliverables.
Tasks must first be determined. Some guidelines for determining tasks are as follows:
 Identify tasks as precisely as possible. Each task should be short compared to the overall
project duration. For example, if you plan to put up a frame house, you may want to break
up the “put up the frame” process into three or more tasks, one for each part of the house
(outer walls, inner walls, roof etc). This helps you make a more reliable estimate of the
time and resources required to complete a task.
 Tasks must be significant enough to include in the project plan. Insignificant or
unscheduled tasks only clutter your project task list. For example, in the “pour the
concrete” task mixing the concrete may be important, but it may not be significant enough
to include as a separate step if it doesn’t affect how the task is scheduled.
 The level of detail in your list of tasks should be appropriate for the amount of planning
and control you want. For example, if you are hiring outside consultants to do a study, you
are interested in when the consultant starts the study and when the study will be
completed but you are not interested in the detailed tasks performed by the consultants.
In your list of tasks, you would include one task for the study, showing the duration for the
whole, rather than many tasks indicating each step of the study. However, if you are doing
the study yourself, the separate steps would need to be included in your task list.
 When you list your tasks, you must be aware of the scope of the tasks and the assumptions
on which the tasks are based. This helps you identify changes and measure progress.
 Be comprehensive. Remember to include reports, reviews and coordination activities in
your list of tasks and remember to include tasks for anticipated rework or modifications
after a task has been completed, such as revising a manual or reworking and retesting a
new product.
 Name a task using a verb and a noun, such as “pour the concrete”, “build the outer wall
frame” and “tile the roof”. Make the names as explicit as possible and keep the style of the

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names consistent throughout. This consistency will help others understand each task in
your schedule.
Task sequencing
At this point in the planning phase, our project is a list of tasks, what must be done in order to
complete it, deliverables, and milestones to measure its progress.
Now it’s time to work out the sequence in which the tasks can be done to achieve these
milestones and deliverables.
Obviously we could just put them in a logical order like a 'to do' list and then do them one after
the other. This is fine for small, simple projects but for a complex project with many tasks this has
the potential to be a long and inefficient path to completion.
Many activities in a project can be done simultaneously to increase efficiency, while other tasks
will be done sequentially because they are dependent on earlier tasks.
Estimating task duration

After the sequence of tasks is set, you must estimate the duration of the tasks. The duration
includes both the work time that is needed to do the task plus the time over which this work is
done. For example it may take 14 hours of work to perform a task, but this work may be done over
four days because the assigned person may only do 3.5 hours work per day on the task. Holidays
and weekends must also be considered when estimating task duration.
To complete the duration estimates you need to know:
 the activities within the task
 the sequence of the activities
 the availability of resources
 the skill levels of the personnel
 any constraints and assumptions that have been made
 any historical information from previous projects.
When estimating task times, there are five options that you can use to gather information to help
you make the estimates as accurate as possible:
1. Ask the people who will actually do the work because they have the experience.
2. Get an expert's opinion in the task field.
3. Use an identical or similar task in a completed project as a guideline.
4. If you have time and the task is ready to be undertaken, perform a test task.
5. If all else fails, make your best educated estimate.
The results then are:
 a detailed list of activity durations
 a document describing the background of the estimates.

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Scheduling
The schedule for the project will draw on all the information about the tasks that you have
gathered and estimated. In the schedule show for each task the:
 calendar dates
 task duration
 resource capacity.
The desired result is to have a realistic project schedule that will provide a baseline for monitoring
and measuring the project performance.
An accurate schedule is the most important tool for implementing a project and coordinating
resources. If you are too short or too long with your time frame then the project will likely go over
time or over budget. You must be realistic about the time required to complete a project.
A schedule lists tasks, in step-by-step order, and indicates what to do, who is to do it and the time
that is allocated to complete it.
To schedule effectively you need to know:
 fixed deadlines
 details of each task
 the order in which tasks will be done
 how each task will be done
 the number of staff and/or resources available to complete the task
 estimates of the time needed to complete each task
 when each task must be completed
 how task completion will be measured
 the number of tasks to be completed within a time frame
 external and internal environmental factors that may influence performance.
Developing a project schedule

Once you have correctly sequenced all tasks, you should schedule all the activities required for
each task. There are seven common steps to follow to create the schedule:
1. estimate the time required to complete each activity
2. determine if there is a critical path sequence for activities
3. determine the likely dates for each activity
4. review the schedule against resource availability
5. chart the final schedules and distribute it to the project team
6. make adjustments based on team feedback
7. approve the schedule and distribute.

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A simple schedule

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Schedule control
There are many reasons to amend or change a project schedule and many issues arise from doing
so. This is why a realistic project schedule is important to successful project management. Strong
leadership is important to make sure that project schedules are met.
There is constant pressure from stakeholders/sponsors to shorten schedules and from suppliers
and contractors to lengthen schedules, so you will need to have strong negotiation skills to
maintain control of the project timetable.
The importance of correctly negotiated and realistic milestones in the scope document will be the
measuring tool for any rescheduling requests. Requests for changes in the schedule should go
through a change management process, be assessed for relevance and impact, and then approved
by a properly implemented change control group.
Tools for prioritising and scheduling tasks
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Of the many methods available to define the activity and tasks that make up a project—the one
that is most used and is easiest to understand—is the work breakdown structure, usually referred
to as a WBS.
Using WBS, we represent the goal, objectives, tasks, sub-tasks and work activities using a
hierarchical tree which shows all of the levels of breakdown. The top branch represents the goal of
the project and the bottom branches represent the individual work activities to be performed.
It could be a hierarchical listing like a table of contents in the front of a book or a graphical
diagram for displaying the WBS, like the WBS chart shown below. You will notice that it looks a
little like an organisational chart for a company.

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An example of a WBS chart for installation of animal litter bins and bag dispensers in all council
parks
Gantt charts
Gantt charts are the most common means for displaying project schedule information. Gantt
charts use a list of tasks or activities required to complete the project. The timing for each task is
represented as a series of horizontal lines or bars under a calendar scale.

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Here is an example Gantt chart. Notice that task timings can overlap, be broken up or have gaps
between tasks.
Critical path method

Critical path analysis is a technique for calculating the duration of the project by analysing and
calculating the duration of the longest path (the critical path) through the project.
Typically you are trying to determine the shortest path to complete a project. However, the critical
path method looks at all tasks within the project and based on their sequence measures the path
through this sequence that could potentially take the longest time. This helps estimate a realistic
timeframe in which to complete the project.
In the example critical path chart below the shortest path is task A to C to G and would take only 7
days. However, a more realistic timeframe is represented via task A to C to E to G which could take
up to 12 days.

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4 days
Task B Task E
6 days
1 day 5 days
1 day 6 days
Task A Task C Task G
3 days 2 days
6 days Task F
Task D
Example critical path for a series of project tasks
PERT analysis
PERT analysis is a technique that is used when there is a high degree of uncertainty about the
individual activity duration estimates. PERT calculates the critical path method but uses
statistically weighted average duration estimates.
PERT uses probabilistic estimates, which are activity duration estimates based on three criteria:
 optimistic duration
 most likely duration
 pessimistic duration.
The three estimates are then statistically averaged using a formula called the weighted average
formula. Deriving this formula is outside the scope of this topic but an example is provided below.
The formula is: Where:

BD + (4  LD) + WD ED = Estimated event duration
ED =
6
BD = Best duration – shortest time needed to
complete the activity
LD = Likely duration—the time most likely
needed to complete the activity
WD = Worst duration—the longest time
required to complete the activity.
Risk management
Risk management is a major issue in project management. Your project plan should include a risk
management plan.
A risk is something that may happen and if it does, it will have a negative impact on the project. A
risk must also have a probability of occurring that is something above 0% and less than 100%. If
there is no chance of it happening, then it is not a risk. If it has a 100% chance of occurring it is a
certainty rather than a risk and must be factored into the project planning.

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The second thing to consider is what type of impact it will have on the project. If it will have a
neutral or positive impact, it is not a risk. Suppose we said a risk was that we would find the
project less complicated than we thought, and could finish early. Unless finishing early has a
negative effect on the project, it is not a risk.
There are four stages to risk management planning:
1. risk identification
2. risk quantification
3. risk response
4. risk monitoring and control.
Risk identification
In this stage, we identify and name the risks. The best way to do this is to run a workshop with the
project team. Use a combination of brainstorming specific project risks and reviewing standard
risk lists. There are different sorts of risks for each project and you need to decide on a project-by-
project basis what to do about each type of risk.
Business risks are ongoing risks that are best handled by the business. Consider Happy Pizza P/L. If
the project to install a new accounting system cannot meet the end of financial year deadline, the
business area may need to keep their existing accounting system for another year. Happy Pizza P/L
can respond by developing a contingency plan to use the existing system for another year.
Generic risks are risks to all projects, for example the risk that suppliers might not meet project
deadlines. Each organisation will develop standard responses to generic risks.
Risks should be defined in two parts:
 the cause of the risk (such as suppliers not meeting deadlines, staff absences, contractors
not available, etc)
 the impact of the risk occurring (such as exceeding the budget, milestones not achieved,
etc).
Risk quantification
Risks need to be quantified in two dimensions. You need to assess the probability of the risk
occurring as well as the likely impact on the project if the risk does occur. For simplicity, rate each
on a 1 to 4 scale using a matrix similar to the one below—the larger the number, the larger the
impact or probability.

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Risk quantification matrix
Note that if probability is high and impact is low then this is a medium risk, whereas if the impact
of a risk is high and probability is low it is high risk. A remote chance of a project-destroying risk
warrants more attention than a high chance of a small problem.
Risk response
There are four things you can do about a risk:
1. Avoid the risk. Do something to remove it, for example, use another supplier if the current
supplier cannot deliver on time.
2. Transfer the risk. Make someone else responsible. Perhaps a vendor can be made
responsible for a particularly risky part of the project, or insurance can be obtained to
provide cover in the event of the risk occurring.
3. Mitigate the risk. Take action to lessen the impact or chance of the risk occurring. If the
risk relates to availability of resources, identify alternative suppliers and draw up
agreements to allow suppliers to be changed if deadlines are not met.
4. Accept the risk. The risk might be so small that the effort to do anything about it is not
worthwhile.
A risk response plan should include the strategy and action items to address each risk. The actions
should include what needs to be done, who is going to do it, and when it should be completed.
Below is a sample risk response plan.
Sample risk response plan for installation of animal litter bins and bag dispensers in council parks
Risk Title Risk Details Risk Mitigation Strategy

Priority
Failure to Failure to meet schedule due to bad Low Accept. If this does happen it
meet weather, staff shortages. Constant bad will only push back the
schedule weather over the short project time project a short time.
frame could delay the project.
Cost External costs include contractor for Low Fixed price quote obtained
overruns for installing some of the bins, possible from contractor for their two
installing bins overtime, cement and damage to days of work.
tools.
The cost of the bins has not been
included as these have already been
purchased.
Bins will be The bins may be stolen from park Low Cement bins in to minimise
stolen locations. risk of being removed,
pushed over or stolen.
Insure—Council must
maintain insurance to cover
the theft of council property
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in public reserves.
Risk monitoring and control

Risk management is not a complex task. If you follow the four steps (risk identification, risk
quantification, risk response, risk monitoring and control) you can put together a risk management
plan for a project in a short space of time. Without a plan, the success of the project, and your
reputation as a project manager, are on the line. Follow these steps and you will increase your
chances of success.
Cost management
Cost management is and important area of project management especially in profit-focused
corporate contexts. Companies are always conscious of budget overruns and cost restrictions in
today’s competitive markets.
Project cost management includes all the processes required to make sure the project is
completed within the approved budget.
As the project manager, it is crucial for you to make sure that the scope document is as accurate
as possible, so that the approved budget is based on estimates that are as realistic as possible.
An accurate scope document also helps to make sure that the only work that is done on the
project is work that is defined in the scope. Remember—it is your job as the project manager to
constantly satisfy the needs of the stakeholders while keeping costs down and under control.
Project cost management processes include:
 resource planning
 estimating costs
 estimated costs and budget.
Resource planning
To estimate, budget and control the costs of a project, you, as the project manager, must
determine what resources are required and in what quantities, to complete all the project tasks.
This includes people, equipment, facilities and materials.
When you have determined this, you will have a detailed list of resource requirements. To make
sure that resource estimates are as accurate as possible, draw upon the skills of people with
experience and expertise in similar projects.
Estimating cost
Costing a project is not an easy task. All projects are different and you may not have a previous
example to assist you in costing the current project. You can refer to audit reports and budgets
from previous projects, but these may only provide ideas, rather than real costs.
One of the key inputs to the costing process is the detailed WBS that you developed at the start of
the planning phase.
With very large projects this estimation process is usually undertaken in three stages.

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1. Early rough estimate is usually done well before the start of a project or even before a
project is initiated. This estimate is usually made with a -25% to + 75% accuracy.
2. Budgetary estimate is used to allocate funds into a company budget for forecasted
expenditure in the upcoming 12–24 months. The accuracy of this estimate is usually
tighter and about -10% to + 25%.
3. Definitive estimates are made after the project has started and usually provide the
accurate estimate for project costs. These estimates are usually based on the
performance of the project to date. The accuracy of this estimate is usually
approximately -5% to + 10%.
There are typically four major cost areas that are involved in any task. They are:
1. labour costs
2. equipment/materials costs
3. other direct costs (travel, telephone, contracted services etc)
4. indirect costs (for example company overheads, depreciation etc).
You can take either a top down or a bottom up approach to costing.
The top down method

The top down method of costing can be difficult—it relies on senior management estimating a
budget for a project from their experience and then allocating funds to the project team for
execution. This only works if the senior management have allocated carefully and they have
significant project experience and precedents of similar projects on which to base costs.
Estimation done this way puts a limit on the project, which can severely limit the tasks that can be
included in the project.
The bottom up method

The approach to costing preferred by most project managers is to estimate from the bottom up—
to cost each task and subtask then work out the total cost from that. If the task is repeated many
times throughout the project then you can use this as a standard unit of work cost. This is also the
most accurate method as it involves input from the staff and providers of materials and services.
This method reduces the risk of tasks or subtasks being left out of the total costing for the project.
Contingency allowances
When all task costs have been totalled and you have a final cost for the project, don’t forget to
add in a contingency allowance. In project management terms this is ‘padding’ to allow for errors
in estimating or unexpected cost occurrences.
Estimated costs and budget

Once you have added up all the costs for all the tasks and activities and you have a final cost
estimate for the project, you usually present it to the project sponsor and stakeholders who are
providing the funds. After assessment and negotiation, the project sponsor will either accept the
costing for the project and approve funds or the project scope or methodology may have to be re-

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evaluated to reduce costs. When the funds are allocated this becomes the project budget, which
you will use to control and track the project expenditure against.
A sample budget is shown below.
Sample budget for installation of animal litter bins and bag dispensers in council parks
Proposed budget or financial constraints for the project
Overtime wages/contractor payments $ 7,000

Bins & posts $ 15,000
Materials (cement, etc) $ 2,000
Annual bag replacement program $ 6,000
Annual additional charge by Waste Management Co $ 18,000
Total cost $ 48,000
Compile your project plan document

It’s now time to consolidate all the work you’ve done into your project plan document. It is a
document that you and others can refer to for all the vital information about stakeholders,
schedules, team members, tasks, quality management, cost management, and risk management.
Sections in a project plan document
For medium to large projects, the project plan is definitely the key document in the project. If you
have a project like this you should consolidate all of your planning documents created so far into
one project plan document.
For smaller projects with established work teams, you may be able to use just the scope
document, along with budget, work schedules and the risk management plan as your total project
planning tools.

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Remember that the project plan is a positive document that represents the move from planning to
execution. It is simultaneously a tool for guiding management decisions, control and reporting. It is
a master plan to pull together all the various pieces of information that you have developed in the
planning phase. It tells you:
 where you are
 where you are going, and
 how you are going to get there.
Project plans can vary from a very simple single page document with some objectives, a task list,
resources and budget, to a complex report accompanied by books of estimates, task lists, Gantt
charts, critical path analyses etc.
Here is a suggested format for a large project with a detailed project plan. The plan has several
sections:
 executive summary, or overview, including the project goal
 project objectives and deliverables
 project milestones
 project assumptions
 project risks
 project work breakdown structure
 resource details
- human resources
- equipment
- materials and supplies
- budget details
- project organisation
- operating procedures
- assessment and review criteria
- contacts
- project approvals.
There is no fixed rule for the level of detail that should go into the project plan. The aim is to
balance the time taken to plan the project with the importance and time taken to implement the
plan.
If a new telephone system is to be installed in an office of five staff then a two week planning
phase is unnecessarily detailed.
If your project is to build a new office building that will cost $25 million, take 16 months to
complete and involve over 100 people, then three months of planning will be a small cost to pay
for successful completion of the project.

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Remember, the most important general management skills you will use are planning and
communication. You have to meet with many people to help determine the information that you
need to correctly estimate work durations, costs and resources.
Project Plan Sign-off

It is important that you receive agreement on the project plan. Agreement on what will be
dleivered, how it will be deivered, when, and costings. It will be decided at the start of the project
who needs to be involved in this sign-off and what needs to happen to allow those parties to sign-
off. For example you may be asked to present the project plan in a formal meeting and allow
discussion or you may have a one on one meeting to review the physical plan. Regardless the
relevant parties need to sign the plan to formalise it’s acceptance before you move to the next
phase.

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Topic 2 Activities

Introduction
vary depending on the workplace.
Questions
1. What reasons can you think of that may cause the duration of a task to be longer than the
actual work hours?
Answer:
2. What are the costs that relate to your project and how can you budget for them?
Answer:
3. Identify the risks associated with your project and fill out a plan.
Answer:
Check your answers
Question 1

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You may have included such things as delays caused by suppliers, rain, strikes, illness, etc.
Question 2
Every project will have a very different budget and different costs associated with it. If you have
talked with the various people involved and identified where the costs will lie and what they are
estimated to be, you should be able to itemise them with some accuracy. Remember to include all
labour, materials, other direct costs and where necessary, indirect costs.
Question 3
Each project has risks associated with it. Remember to talk with others in the team to help you to
both identify risks and devise a strategy to manage them.
Activity 2: Time Planning

Background:
ACME Bathroom Renovations are a busy bathroom renovation company. Mr and Mrs Smith
received a quote for their bathroom from ACME for $6,000. $3,000 for materials and the rest for
the 40 hours labour needed to complete the work.
The following information is known at this time:
 The materials including the tiles to do the work will not be able to be delivered until 8am
Wednesday 19th March.
 Easter is from Friday 21st – Monday 24th March inclusive.
 Gary and Tim are paid $50 per hour each with double time after the first 8 hours and
double time on weekends and public holidays.
 ACME want to maximize the profit from the renovation.
 Mr and Mrs Smith want minimum inconvenience to their bathroom. Currently their
bathroom is not usable as the old tiles have been removed and their bathroom is not
waterproof.
Activity:
1) Produce a time line showing each day the work will be undertaken along with the resources,
cost and total cost. E.g.:
Monday 24th Tuesday 25th

March March
Gary and Tim – 4 Gary and Tim – 8

hours each hours each single

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Monday 24th Tuesday 25th
March March
double time time
Cost = $800 Cost = $800
Total Cost =
$5000
Note: There is more than one right answer.
2) How does this show the relationship between time and:

a) Resources:
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
b) Risk:
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
c) Costs:
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________
d) Procurement:
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________

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Activity 3: Budgeting
You work for a global manufacturer of consumer electronics. There is an international tradeshow
in Brisbane to which seven of your sales team will be attending. This team comes from offices all
over the world.
Before attending the Brisbane tradeshow the sales team will be stopping off in Sydney to attend a
one day, new product training session.
You have been given the task of budgeting this project. The international offices are covering the
cost of flights to Sydney. However you must research the estimated costs for the following:
 Transport from the airport to the training venue.

 Hire of a training venue at a hotel near the airport.
 Hire of computer and audio visual equipment for conducting the new product training.
 Staff costs for yourself and a products specialist.
 A catered lunch on-site for the attendees.
 Overnight accommodation for the seven attendees.
 Transport from the training venue to the airport.
 Weekday morning flights from Sydney to Brisbane for the seven attendees.
Activity 3: Quiz
Use this quiz to check your knowledge of the project planning stage.
Question 1:
What is the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) used for?
1. to identify project risks

2. to show the goal, objectives, tasks, sub-tasks and work
3. to estimate cost
4. to provide a project timeline and schedule
Question 2:
Which of the following is not a risk?
1. that the project may be delayed by tardy suppliers

2. that work will need to redone due to quality issues
3. that the sponsor will change the scope part way through
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4. that public holidays will disrupt the schedule
Question 3:
You should ensure that the project budget is as...
1. close to achieving actual costs plus 20 percent for error

2. low as can be achieved
3. realistic as possible
4. comprehensive as possible to allow for every possible risk
Question 4:
Which of the following is a common tool used in schedule planning?
1. resource list
2. Gantt chart
3. work break down structure
4. quality audit
Question 5:
The critical path is the sequence of tasks that forms the:
1. most likely duration of the project

2. shortest duration of the project
3. least likely duration of the project
4. longest duration of the project
Question 6:
The PERT technique is generally used:
1. because it is a more graphical technique than others that are available

2. because it involves less work
3. when there is a high degree of uncertainty about the activity duration estimates
4. because it avoids complex calculations
Question 7:
Projects should be broken down into the following units from largest to smallest
1. project goal, project objectives, tasks, and activities

2. project objective, project goals, tasks, and activities
3. project tasks, activities, objectives, and goals
4. project activities, tasks, objectives, and goals

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Question 8:
A defined task should contain which of the following. Select all correct answers.
1. duration
2. cost
3. resources
4. staffing
Question 9:
Task duration is the number of hours required to complete the task. True or false.
1. True
2. False
Question 10:
A risk that is highly probable but will have a low impact represents what level of overall risk?
1. low
2. medium
3. high
4. critical

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Topic 3 Administering and Monitoring the Project
All of your planning will be wasted if the plan is not implemented and monitored properly. In this
topic we will look at the elements that lead to the successful implementation of a project:
recruiting the right team, obtaining resources, monitoring and assessing the project, and managing
risk.
For a project to be successful administration and monitoring systems need to be established early
in the life of the project. An understanding of these systems must start in defining stage when
formulating the scope of the project. These systems should then be detailed in the project plan. It
will be up to the project manager then, to make sure that these systems are maintained
throughout the project.
Administration is essentially the management of all the activities that allow a system or
organisation to function.
There are many major and minor procedures to sort out. The budget needs to be managed and
measures for accountability need to be set in place. You need to establish work flow patterns, and
there will be day-to-day office work to be done.
Administration also includes the organisation, attendance and taking of minutes at meetings. It
includes management of correspondence, ensuring that project files are well structured,
appropriately stored, named and maintained, and there is a regular review of processes for
improvement.
In a project, there is a tendency to take administration duties for granted, or to resent them, and
leave these tasks for someone else to do. However, ignoring them can lead to major problems,
particularly when something unexpected happens, or when a dispute arises.
Some of the systems that may be required for the successful management of projects include
systems for:
 planning and monitoring
 financial management including, budget allocation/funding, income generated and
expenditure
 record keeping of correspondence, surveys, test results, and contracts
 to record time allocated and spent on each aspect of the project as well as reports of
progress, performance against milestones and project outcomes
 archiving and management of documentation, samples, prototypes etc

1. initiate phase
2. plan phase
3. organise phase

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4. control phase
5. close phase.
This topic takes a close look at the organise and control phases.

Define the Develop a Obtain necessary Lead and Complete final
overall project detailed task list resources support the deliverables
goal team
Identify all Estimate all task Recruit necessary Establish control Write and issue a
stakeholders, times and all personnel tools and final report,
their needs and costs methods close the
expectations accounts, hand
over project files
Identify the Arrange the best Organise and lead Monitor the Release all
project sequence of all the project team project plan and resources
objectives tasks make any
necessary
corrective
actions
Identify initial Develop a Assign all project Assess and Obtain
milestones
Identify all Write a detailed Communicate Prepare and Evaluate the
constraints, project plan and with stakeholders distribute status project
assumptions and obtain approval and all necessary reports
risks from parties
stakeholders
The organise phase

In the organise phase you will:
 obtain resources
 recruit personnel
 organise and lead the project team
 assign all project tasks
 communicate with stakeholders and all necessary parties.

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Obtaining resources
There are seven fundamental resource types that are required to implement almost any project.
The actual quantity of each resource should be identified in the detailed work breakdown
structure (WBS) and schedules that make up the project plan.
The seven fundamental types of resource are:
1. people
2. money
3. equipment
4. facilities
5. materials and supplies
6. information
7. technology.
Always start with the people first. Other materials and facilities are useless without the right
project team.
Recruiting personnel
As the project manager, you may not be solely responsible for determining who will be part of the
project team. Your organisation may have particular recruitment processes and human resources
staff that can assist you in finding the right people for the project. During the recruiting process
you must:
 determine the skills required for each activity by developing a skills requirement list
 determine where the people will come from—existing internal or new external staff or
contractors
 select the right team members, either internally or externally
 assign activities to each team member
 establish an appropriate staff hierarchy and chain of responsibility for the project.
Identifying the skills you need on your team

Your WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) will list all activities that are to occur during your project. It
is now time to use this to develop a skills requirements list based on what you need to complete
each activity. Here is an example:
Activity Skills required

Estimate building costs Building project estimator with
experience in estimating building
costs for a building of this type and
size
As you work through the skills requirements list, you list each activity required and then the skills
needed to complete that activity. You may need more than one person to provide the skills
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required. In fact in many cases the skills might need to be provided by teams made up of a number
of people with the same skills, for example, a team of architects.
Selecting the right candidates for your team

You can compare a project team with any other team that works together in a department. When
you are selecting staff, it is important that you look for people who have as many of the following
characteristics as possible:
 commitment to the project goal and its completion
 flexibility in changing work activities from one task to another
 technical competence
 being task-oriented and able to work with schedules and resource constraints
 being a team player, and not self-oriented
 ability to work across formal structures and if necessary reporting to multiple managers
 being open to suggestions, and showing a willingness to admit error and be corrected
 knowledge and experience with project management tools.
As a project manager, you will also need to keep a team member record. This lists all project
members, their skills, when they joined the project and when they left the project. A simple table
document or spreadsheet can be created to record this information. See the example below.
An example of a team member record
Date Date
Team member name Skills
entered departed
project management skills
George Williams 12/3 9/12
construction supervisor
Building quantity surveyor and
Beth Carillios 15/4 -
estimator
Construction foreman and
Alan Peters WorkCover OHS accredited 20/4 17/12
trainer
Employing external project staff in either permanent positions or as contractors is all part of the
process. Hiring or contracting staff is necessary when appropriate internal staff are not available.
Developing your team

As the project manager you are usually responsible for the management of all aspects of the
project, such as cost, resources and deliverables. But just as important is the responsibility to the
project staff to build a cohesive and effective team, by providing a positive and supportive working
environment. Your people are the most important resource of the project, and without them the
project will fail.

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You must apply all your principles of communication, leadership and organisation to build the best
team. It is your job to:
 listen
 support
 resolve conflict
 motivate
 train
 advise
 lead
 recognise and reward achievement
 communicate.
Assigning all project tasks

Once the key team members are in place and the structure is set up, you can start gathering
together the other resources required for the project and then assign the tasks and work activities
to the team members.
When we break down the project into the complete list of tasks, we produce the WBS. Tasks
should be broken into manageable, unitised chunks of activities that share common skills,
resources and can be started and completed within a reasonable timeframe.
It is important that you clearly document all work activities, providing a description of the tasks
and resources that make up each activity. Work activity documentation is then standardised
across the project. This is helpful because:
 It informs all parties of the tasks in sufficient detail, what the deliverables are, the expected
completion date, and the relationship to other tasks.
 It is presented in a format that can be used to record progress. This in turn can be used for
regular status reporting.
 It serves as a clear reference for any conflicting issues that may occur.
Scheduling of work activities always depends on resource availability and time constraints
imposed by the project itself.
You will usually schedule tasks to maintain a consistent use of available human resources over the
life of the project and, where possible, try to avoid times of peak activity.
Communicating with stakeholders

It is important to have an open communication and consultation process with all stakeholders
throughout the project to:
 determine whether targets are realistic
 make changes to the plan to accommodate the feedback received and reasonable concerns
of stakeholders

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 monitor the implementation process to ensure that everything is on target
 ensure that everyone is aware of progress and how their performance is impacting on
others
 organise training for people who need it in order to deal with new work methods.
Once you have established a team of project staff and assigned project tasks the core activities of
the project can begin. It is during this stage that you must maintain control of the project to keep
it on track. The next section of this reading provides an overview of the control phase.
The control phase

In the control phase you will:
 provide team leadership and support
 establish control tools and methods
 monitor the project plan and make any necessary corrective actions
 assess and implement change
 prepare and distribute status reports.
Team leadership
There are many textbooks on the subject of team leadership and leaders. It is beyond the scope of
this topic to teach these skills, but it is important that you recognise the skill areas that you must
develop to succeed as a project manager. You can successfully do all of the management parts of
the project: planning, reporting, analysing and organising, but if you fail as a leader, then your
project is also in danger of failing.
Here are some useful tips.
 As the team leader you can arrange discussions around the needs of the organisation for
innovative ideas.
 You can introduce team members to techniques such as brainstorming that can help the
innovation process.
 You can support team members when setbacks happen. If the team puts a proposal to
senior management and it is rejected, that can demoralise team members. Your role as a
team leader is to work with your team to find out why an idea was rejected, and discuss
what they will do in the future. Teams need feedback so that they can improve their skills.
Studies have found that successful project managers have several common characteristics that
make them successful. Successful project managers:
 are leaders by example
 are technically competent
 are decisive
 are good communicators
 are team players

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 support their team members
 can stand up to upper management when necessary
 are visionaries.
Leadership styles
There is a wide range of leadership styles that are effective across many situations, but we will
consider three basic styles that you can use to manage your projects:
 People-oriented leaders develop rapport with team members and generate an open,
positive environment for the team.
 Task-oriented leaders focus on getting the tasks decided on, organised and assigned, as
well as evaluating performance.
 Reward-oriented leaders use meaningful rewards that correlate to the level of results and
the person's efforts. These rewards can range from money to simple support and
acknowledgment for work well done.
A successful project manager has the ability to vary the leadership style to suit to individuals and
teams.
Controlling the project

Any number of foreseeable and unforeseeable events can quickly prevent a project from
progressing as you had planned it. These might include:
 failure to meet schedules
 cost overruns
 not managing risks
 specifications not being met.
As the project manager, you are responsible for ensuring that the project goal and objectives are
met and that everything progresses as planned. The quickest way for a project to go off track is for
the project manager to fail to ensure that effective control and quality assurance systems are put
in place.
Control is an ongoing activity, just like quality assurance. To control a project you need to:
 monitor usage of human, financial and physical resources
 compare the planned status of the project to its actual status
 take corrective action if necessary.
Corrective action may include
 modifying the work being done
 modifying the project objectives
 modifying the timeline
 modifying expenditure

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 coaching, training or performance counselling for staff.
Corrective action may also mean you must make changes to the original plan. If so, you must do
this in consultation with project stakeholders and the project sponsor.
Managing a project is an ongoing cycle involving monitoring, controlling and directing work
Why are project controls necessary?

Project controls are usually designed to focus on the three major aspects of project
measurements—cost, time schedules and performance levels—as well as managing change.
Project controls are necessary to:
 monitor and track progress, by having in place a periodic reporting system that identifies
the status of every activity in the project, for the current reporting period as well as for the
entire project
 detect variation from the plan, by using exception and variance reports that provide
information on activities and resources that vary from what is expected
 take corrective action by examining alternatives, and making modifications to the schedule
and resource usage to correct any detected deviation from the plan
 assess, approve and manage change.
If you use these controls effectively you will find that any discrepancy from the plan is identified
quickly. For example, if progress reports are made on a monthly basis, an event at the beginning of
the reporting period may have thrown the project off track, and by the time the monthly report is
made any delays caused by this event may not be able to be made up. Daily or weekly monitoring
may help you to solve the problem quickly and get the project back on track.

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Project controls from the Project Management Body of Knowledge
This relates to the Project Management Body of Knowledge Monitoring and Controlling process
group. This lists a number of methods to measure and analyse progress against the plan, identify
variances and take corrective action.
These include:
Change control processes which review all suggested changes to the project, evaluate the impact
of these to scope, time, cost and other impacts, decide whether to accept or reject the change (as
well as the people who are authorised to make this decision) and if accepted ensure project
deliverable reflect the change, update the scope, time, cost and other aspects of the project plan.
Control of the schedule by gathering work performance information and forecasting ahead. Work
performance information can be gathered by a number of means such as meetings, timesheets,
inspections.
Control of costs again by collecting work performance information (remember time = money) and
forecasting costs for the future.
Quality control is covered in detail below.
Control of risks by implementing risk strategies, tracking identified risks, identifying new risks,
monitoring risk ratings. When change requests are evaluated ensure they are evaluated for
change is risk to the project.
Control of resources by ensuring they understand the tasks to be completed and that only tasks in
scope are undertaken.
Change control
Change control gives control over the scope of the project. The three main focuses of change
control throughout the life cycle of the project are:
 identifying that a change is necessary and making sure that the change is beneficial
 determining that a change has taken place
 managing the actual changes as they occur.
Change control is also called change management, and in a project it can use a formal
documented process called a change control system. The aim of change management is to:
 maintain the integrity of the performance measurement baselines (all changes must be
reflected on the scope and time line)
 ensure that changes required to the project scope are reflected in the scope definition.
A project change request form can be used for all requests for a change in the project. Such
requests might be submitted to the project manager for consideration and processing. The form
should include:
 a request number (for tracking)
 the name and contact details of the person making the request

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 the date of the request
 the change and reason for the change
 project manager’s approval or denial
 reasons for denial
 special conditions attached to the approval
 the project manager’s signature
 a summary of the effect of change on the project in regard to technical issues, budget,
deadlines, and other projects
Quality control
Quality control an important sub-part of the overall control mechanisms for a project. Quality
control is the means of consistently meeting the negotiated expectations of stakeholders in a
project. It is something that every organisation strives to achieve to give it a competitive edge in
industry. Quality objectives are often expressed in a policy document that reflects the standards
the organisation wishes to achieve and the responsibilities associated in meeting those objectives.
Project management needs to follow organisational policy in this regard.
Quality management is perhaps the most difficult area of expertise in project management to
define. It helps to remember that the customer ultimately decides if quality is acceptable, the
basis for quality exists in the original intentions of the project and that quality control a continuous
process of evaluation and improvement.
Project quality management has three main processes.
 Quality planning includes identifying which quality standards are required and how to
measure and satisfy them.
 Quality assurance involves the regular evaluation of overall project performance against
the quality standards.
 Quality control involves monitoring specific project deliverables to ensure that they meet
the relevant standards and identifying ways to improve overall quality.
Planning for quality assurance and control

At the start of a project it is critical to plan for quality assurance. Planning for quality involves a
simple three-part process.
 Identifying all quality stakeholders in the project such as the sponsor, functional managers,
suppliers, end-users, and you as the project manager. You will then meet with all
interested parties and determine their expectations of quality, and get agreement on the
objectives and standards for the project.
 Determining quality objectives based on the stakeholders requirements. These are
statements that broadly describe the quality outcomes that will be achieved.
 Determining quality standards and levels of achievement that must be met must during the
project. These are developed to support the quality objectives set by the stakeholders and
may also be set by industry benchmarks, such as ISO 9000 (quality management).
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The project manager must make sure that quality standards are incorporated into the project plan
and that there are tasks and milestones in the schedule to measure quality at the appropriate
time.
Quality assurance
For large projects, a quality assurance group may be formed, and for smaller projects quality
assurance may fall to one person. Quality assurance includes all of the activities related to
satisfying the relevant and agreed quality standards that have been set for the project. Another
goal of quality assurance is continual quality improvement.
Quality assurance is usually determined by ISO 9000 standards, which are a series of international
guidelines on quality management. If a company has ISO 9000 accreditation then these guidelines
are part of normal business.
Quality audits
Quality audits are a review of specific quality management activities and are one of the tools of
quality assurance. Project plans and design specifications are reviewed to ensure that all the steps
of the development process are being carried out correctly. As project activities are completed
they are usually formally documented. This documentation can become one measure of quality.
Quality control and continuous improvement

One of the main goals of quality control is to improve, and there are three main outputs from
quality control evaluation.
 Acceptance decisions determine which of the outputs/products of the project are accepted
or rejected by stakeholders.
 Rework directives are actions taken to bring products up to stakeholder expectations when
they have failed to meet quality measurement.
 Process adjustments correct or prevent further quality problems that have been identified.
Adjustments can be procedure change, supply improvement, material change or increased
resource allocation.
There are many tools and techniques that use statistical sampling methods to analyse quality in a
continuous way. Theses will usually use data tables or graphs to show variance from an expected
level. A detailed look at these methods is beyond the scope of this reading.
How do I manage problems?

No matter how closely you monitor your project, problems will usually occur. This means that as a
project manager you will need good problem-solving and decision-making skills. Here is a process
that will help you.

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Three steps in problem-solving and decision-making
When you apply this process to project management, it’s important to remember:
 track progress of the project to identify problems early
 respond quickly to problems once they occur
 identify the cause of the problem, not the symptoms that highlighted it
 find the best solution to solve the problem quickly and efficiently, and involve relevant
team members
 compromise if necessary to get back on track
 consult stakeholders and gain their approval when required.
Find the real cause of the problem

When a problem happens, you need to find the real cause behind it. You can usually do this by
asking a series of 'why' questions:
 Why did the issue arise?
 When this question is answered, ask yourself 'why' again and again.
 When there is no longer an answer to the 'why' question you are probably close to the
cause, and from there you can develop a strategy for solving the problem.
Here’s an example.
Your project tracking shows that your workforce on your building site is not completing as
many tasks as had been planned. An easy solution would be to add additional workers to
get back on track or to work overtime. But what is the cause of the problem?
If you talk to the workers you might find, for example, that the materials they are fitting
have not been cut accurately by the supplier. They have to modify them before they can
be fitted. This is the cause of the problem, and the supplier should be made to deliver as
contracted and, if the contract has penalty clauses, to pay for the additional work.
Keep an eye on the risks to your project

In the planning phase of your project you will have completed a risk analysis and quantification,
and developed contingency plans to reduce the negative impact these can have on the project.
In the control phase, you must monitor these risks.
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The risk analysis identifies which risks are most likely to occur and have the greatest impact on the
project. The contingency plans may have identified specific risk monitoring strategies for these
risks, and identified who in the team is responsible for this task. Usually risk is monitored by those
who are closest to the work being done. They need to monitor and report on the identified risks
and look for potential new risks.
If the risks become real issues, then they need to be monitored and you must take appropriate
action to correct them and to bring the project back on track. The type of correction you take
depends on the project, the impact, and the predetermined strategies and plans.
After reviewing the problems, asking all the necessary questions and assessing the techniques for
managing the problem, you may think that you should be able to successfully resolve every one. In
fact, you may find some problems do not have good, clean solutions.
Sometimes it is difficult to determine any good options for resolving a problem. In some cases,
issues arise that are hard to resolve because of difficulty in gaining approval and resolution among
a number of alternatives. In other cases, you may have a number of options that are less than
optimal, and the ultimate resolution may be one that is the least offensive. Solving problems
comes down to identifying the cause of the problem and developing and implementing the most
workable solution.
What records do I keep and when do I do this?

You must communicate and be involved in all aspects of the project if you are going to succeed as
a project manager.
Communication refers to skills and techniques applied to ensure that all stakeholders and
members of a project team receive the information they need, when they need it. It is about
gathering, generating and distributing information, as well as the storage of all project
information.
Be aware that too much information is not necessarily a good thing, while keeping the following in
mind:
 keep progress reports simple and easy to read
 distribute reports to the right people
 remember that stakeholders have an interest in project costs as well as overall progress
 keep project team members informed of the status of task completion and progress
against task lists.
All this needs to be done on a regular basis. The three ‘w’ approach to good communication skills
can be applied to good effect in achieving this. Determine:
 who needs to know what
 when they need to know it
 what format they want the information in.
Depending on the size and scope of your project there may be many records that need to be
produced during the project lifespan including:
 project status reports
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 reports required by law
 injury or accident reports
 time sheets
 employee records
 financial records
 end of project reports.
Small projects
Small projects usually do not need more than basic project reporting. If, as the project manager
you are doing hands-on work on the project, you probably have a very good idea of the overall
status. However, if you are not working on the project, you may need a formal status reporting
process. The following process would be typical:
 Project team members send a status update to the project manager on a weekly basis. This
report covers common issues such as performance against timelines, likely need to change
schedule, tasks and budgets. If suppliers or contractors are working off-site then you may
request they provide project reports against their delivery schedules and budgets.
 The project manager sends a status update to the project sponsor and stakeholders on a
bi-weekly or monthly basis. However, be careful about monthly reporting. If the project is
very small, the client may get no updates before the project is completed. This does not
give them an opportunity to respond if they see anything unusual. The project manager
should report the project status bi-weekly or weekly in these cases.
 The entire project team should attend project status meetings. The meetings should focus
on the project status against the project work plan and try to uncover any current issues,
as well as scope change requests or potential risks. The client should be invited to attend,
but their attendance is not compulsory. The frequency of the meetings depends on the
timetable for the project and the need to get information in a timely manner. For instance,
if the project runs for three weeks, the team might want to meet twice a week. If the
project runs for eight weeks, weekly meetings are probably appropriate.
Larger projects
For larger projects the communication should include formal status meetings and project reports.
 The team should attend project meetings on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. The client should
be represented at the project meeting. If the project manager prefers, there could be
project meetings for the project team and a separate meeting with the client. There should
be a standard agenda for the meetings and each meeting should be no longer than one
hour. In general, the purpose of these meetings is to communicate status, not solve
problems.
 The project manager should send project reports to all stakeholders on a bi-weekly or
monthly basis. Depending on the financial reporting cycle, the monthly project report
should include a financial status.

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 The project team members should send a weekly or bi-weekly project report to the project
manager detailing their progress during the reporting period. This information is used by
the project manager to update each assigned activity in the work plan. If the project
manager understands the current detailed status for each team member, the project
report may not be required. This report is in addition to the project meeting.
 On a monthly basis, usually after the financial systems close, the project manager issues a
formal monthly project report to all the stakeholders, including financial information about
the project.
Information to include
There are generally three types of information that may need to be included in project reports and
other forms of project communications.
 Mandatory—this generally includes project status reports, legal requirements, financial
reporting, etc. This information is sent out to the required recipients such as key project
team members, sponsors/clients and management staff.
 Informational—this is information people want to know or that they may need to know to
do their job. This information is usually made available for people to read, and may be sent
to all or to selected project team members, suppliers, contractors, sponsors or clients.
 Project marketing—this may include project marketing communication, which is designed
to motivate and generate enthusiasm among staff to support the project and its
deliverables. This type of information is particularly important when you want to promote
a project that aims to implement a change in organisational culture or work habits.
What goes in the project report?

Project reports are often not as useful as they should be. This is true for team members who
submit project reports to the project manager, as well as project managers who are submitting
project reports to their stakeholders. One of the major reasons for this is that the people
completing the reports look upon them as a chore instead of a way to communicate valuable
information. A project report that is very brief and says nothing, or one that contains every single
detail performed by individual team members are examples of reports that are not particularly
useful.
As the project manager, you should try to develop project reports that focus on information that
can be used in the decision-making process. Ask team members (and yourself) whether the
information in the project report is there to communicate something valuable or is it just taking up
space?
Typically the project report should focus on:
 accomplishments against the work plan
 comments on work that should be completed but are behind schedule
 problems encountered, the impact they have on the project, and the work performed to
resolve them
 summary budget – planned vs actuals

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 scope change requests
 newly identified risks or/and high priority risks
 observations that will be useful to the target audience.
If you focus on this type of information in your project report, you will find that the information is
meaningful and can be used to help manage the project and keep the stakeholders informed.
Remember that if you report on the trivial events of the reporting period, people will soon stop
paying attention to what you say.

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Topic 3 Activities
Introduction
vary depending on your workplace.
Questions
1. How are team members identified and chosen in your workplace?
Answer:
2. What team development will you use with your project team?
Answer:
3. Have you worked in teams before? What made that experience successful or unsuccessful?
How much of that was due to the management of the team by the project manager or team
leader?
Answer:

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4. What control mechanisms would you put in place for your project?
Answer:
5. Identify the kind of information that will be useful in your project reports.
Answer:
Check your answers

Question 1
Talk to other people who have been involved in projects within your workplace and ask them how
they chose or were chosen to be part of a project team. Find out about whether job descriptions
and skill lists were developed, whether places were advertised and if formal interviews were
conducted.
Question 2
You will need to look at the skills, knowledge and attitudes of your team and identify any
additional skills that need to be developed. You may also need to obtain knowledge or change
attitudes to get your project completed as planned.
Question 3
List all those items that were good and bad from a past project or team activity and who was
responsible for each item; think about what could have been done differently to improve the
project process.
Question 4
Controls might include project reports at set intervals, such as daily or weekly progress, timeline
updates, budget monitoring, supplier monitoring etc.
Question 5
Your answer will depend on the nature of your project and your stakeholders. If you don’t have a
model to use, start by including information on the following topics in relation to your project:
 accomplishments

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 work to be completed
 problems (issues) encountered
 scope change requests
 newly identified risks
 useful observations.
Activity 2: Good Managers

Good projects managers are a rare commodity. There are many skills required to effectively
manage projects and the people involved.
Research and create a mini-guide to effective project management. Focus on the skills and
personal attributes necessary for project success and developing good relationships with the
project team.
Activity 3: Management Terms

Match the following terms with the correct explanation.
1. Staffing
2. Training
3. Supervising
4. Delegating
5. Motivating
6. Counselling
7. Co-ordinating
a. Giving day to day instruction, guidance and discipline.

b. Seeing that activities are carried out in relation to their importance and with minimum
conflict.
c. Holding private discussions with one another about how he or she might do better work,
solve a personal problem, or realize his or her ambitions.
d. Seeing that a qualified person is selected for each position.
e. Encouraging others to perform by fulfilling or appealing to their needs.
f. Assigning work, responsibility, and authority so that others can make maximum utilization
of their abilities.
g. Teaching individuals and groups how to fulfill their duties and responsibilities.
From: H. Kerzner and F Saladis “Project Management Workbook”, 2006.

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Activity 4: Project Tracking
You work as a section manager for a large retail chain in their head office. The regional manager
has asked you to take on a project organising a series of promotional videos for five new
products. You have two months to launch the videos on the company website. Who should you
get involved? What tasks need to be performed? Who performs the tasks. How will you
documents if and when tasks are done? How will you know if the project is completed on time?
Activity 5: Reporting Requirements

Which stakeholders would be interested in these reports and when?
Report Key Elements Project Sponsor Team Others When?

Name Manager
Summary Summary bar for

Gantt Chart each main activity
Milestones
Detailed Timeline for all

Gantt Chart tasks/events
Budget Planned vs Actual

Report budget
Status List of all

report tasks/activities
Planned start/finish
dates
Actual start/finish
dates
Remaining duration

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Activity 6: Status Reporting - Traffic Lights

Organisations often refer to status using the traffic light or “red”, “yellow” and “green” reporting
system.
Green: work is progressing as planned. No major issues. Sponsor involvement is not required.
Yellow: A potential problem exists. The sponsor is informed but sponsor action is not required at
this time.
Red: A problem exists that affects the project scope, schedule or budget. Sponsor action and
involvement is required.
For the following situations which traffic light would you use?
Situation Traffic light (Red, Yellow or Green)
1. A task that is not on the critical path is

delayed. There is sufficient slack to
manage the delay.
2. A critical resource may not be available
at the scheduled time. Negotiations
are underway to resolve the issues.
3. A report shows project performance
regarding scope and schedule and
budget is within acceptable variance
thresholds.
4. The customer insists on a major change
to a deliverable well after acceptance
had been obtained and production is in
the advanced stages.
5. The project manager discovers that a
major component of the scope of work
is missing in the project plan due to an
oversight by the customer.
6. The client has issued a change request
that could delay the completion of a
contractual milestone.
7. A functional manager advises the
project manager that overtime may be
needed to complete a task on time. A
contingency had been included in the
cost estimate for the task.
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Adapted from H Kerzner and F Saldaris “Project Management Workbook” 2006.
Activity 7: Quiz
Use this quiz to check your knowledge of administer and monitor project stage.
Question 1:
Which of the following is not a step in implementing a project?
1. procure necessary resources

2. recruit necessary personnel
3. produce project budget
4. assign all project tasks
Question 2:
When recruiting workers for a project it is important to ensure that:
1. they can work long hours if required

2. they are task-oriented and able to work to schedules
3. they have all-round skills to do any job on the project
4. they have worked with you in the past
Question 3:
Once the project has started the project manager should:
1. move on to the next project

2. sit back and let the project happen
3. call monthly meetings to monitor project progress
4. constantly monitor the project's progress
Question 4:
Which of these risks should you monitor the most carefully?
1. unlikely risks with a large impact

2. likely risks with a large impact
3. likely risks with a small impact
4. unidentified risks
Question 5:

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What are the general management skills that are used most heavily in the implementation process
of a project?
1. organising
2. communicating
3. leading
4. all of the above
Question 6:
The most important resource are the people in your project team. Without the right project team,
other materials and facilities are useless. True or false?
1. True
2. False
Question 7:
One of the goals of quality assurance is continual quality improvement. True or false?
1. True
2. False
Activity 8: Project Key Tasks
Instructions
This activity asks you to focus on the key tasks that need to be undertaken when implementing a
project. Place them in order.
1 Communicate progress to all stakeholders
2 Monitor the implementation process
3 Change the plan to accommodate stakeholder feedback
4 Design and cost a plan
5 Determine whether targets are realistic
6 Consult with all stakeholders

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Topic 4 Finalise the Project
Just as planning the project is an important project management activity, so is closing a project.
The real value of closing a project correctly is in documenting the information and experience
gathered throughout the project. If your team immediately disbands when you complete the final
deliverable, you don't have chance to wrap up the loose ends, gather staff feedback, document
key issues and how they were handled (well or badly).

1. initiate phase
2. plan phase
3. organise phase
4. control phase
5. close phase.
This reading looks at some of the close phase.
Major activities that occur during each project phase:

Define the Develop detailed Obtain Lead and Complete final
overall project task list necessary support the deliverables
goal resources team
Identify all Estimate all task Recruit Establish control Write and issue
stakeholders, times and all necessary tools and final report,
their needs and costs personnel methods close the
over project files
necessary
corrective
actions
milestones
constraints, project plan and with distribute status project
assumptions and obtain approval stakeholders and
Learning Guide
risks from all necessary reports
stakeholders parties
The close phase

In the close phase you will:
 complete final deliverables
 write and issue final report
o document project results and achievements of the project team
o complete project accounts
o hand over project files
 release all resources
o physical resources
o reassign the remaining project team
 obtain stakeholder acceptance and signoff
What if the project is cancelled?

Even when the project is cancelled either during the planning or implementation stages, you
should complete the close phase of the project. In some cases, such as when the project is
cancelled after a large part of the work has been done, it is even more important to close and
finalise the project properly.
Important questions to consider include:
 Why was the project cancelled?
 What could have been done differently?
 What lessons have been learnt?
 How can you manage the project stakeholders and team?
Complete final deliverables

At the end of the project you need to ensure that:
 the project deliverables have been completed to the satisfaction of the sponsor or client,
and
 all the outcomes have been achieved.
This may include addressing issues such as ongoing maintenance, support, training or warranties.
Complete the project accounts and hand over the project files
Financial accounts
At the end of the project there may be a large number of accounting functions that need to be
finalised. These might include:

Learning Guide
 remaining invoices and accounts that need to be paid
 end of project completion payments need to be invoiced to the client or sponsor as
appropriate
 payroll records completed, including paying outstanding pay as you go (PAYG) tax and
superannuation contributions
 deposits on rented equipment recovered
 moneys received from sale of equipment or resources
 final project accounting statements completed
 end of project financial audit completed (if required)
 identification of cost differences and why these occurred.
Other documentation
At the end of a project there can be a large amount of documentation that needs to be handed
over to the appropriate people.
For example, in a training project, you may need to hand over training files to the human
resources department so they can update staff files. If you are managing a building project you
may need to hand over plans to local government agencies, maintenance departments, the new
building owners and the like.
The project team should determine, in consultation with the stakeholders, who should be given all
the documentation and other assets accumulated during the project. Some material may also
have to be deleted, destroyed, backed-up, archived, and so on.
Release all resources

When a project comes to a close many of the physical resources such as materials, equipment and
even buildings, may need to be redeployed, returned to their functional area, or returned
elsewhere. The people who have worked on the project may also need to be reassigned tasks or
redeployed.
Physical resources
Usually the release of resources is an ongoing activity during the project, but it deserves special
attention as the project draws to a close. It is at this time that you and your project team should
start making decisions about the resources that may need to be retained for future use, the return
of rented equipment and vacating of buildings or facilities, and what should be sold or otherwise
disposed of.
A good example is a building project. As the project comes to an end you need to return the
scaffolding, cranes and other plant equipment to their owners, and terminate any rental
agreements. Any materials not used can be stored for future projects, sold or otherwise disposed
of. Onsite safety, first aid and office equipment can also be stored for future projects, sold or
otherwise disposed of.
Reassign the remaining project team

Learning Guide
At the end of the project, the remaining team members should be reassigned as their tasks are
completed. These tasks may include input into the closure activities.
Reassigning staff may mean they are transferred to new projects or returned to their usual work
activities. In either case, you need to manage this period to ensure that a smooth transition takes
place. Staff may need motivating and re-focussing to help them move back to their previous role.
For contractors or temporary staff it may mean the end of their assignments. Payments and work
contracts need to be finalised and closed. In some types of projects, some contracted or
temporary team members may stay with the project in support roles.
In any case you need to keep in mind that close monitoring and assistance is often necessary to
ensure that the end of the project is successfully completed for all involved.
Write the final report

Often the last job you will have to do is to write an end of project report, which outlines the
following types of information:
 The actual deliverables compared with the deliverables described in the scope document
and approved change requests.
 The level of quality achieved by the deliverables and any outstanding problems or defects.
 Whether the deliverables meet all of the client’s requirements.
 Whether estimated timeframes for project completion were met.
 The estimated costs vs actual costs.
This report is then handed to the key stakeholders and will be filed in the project file for others to
access and view. This can then be used by future, similar projects to learn lessons.
Obtain sponsor signoff

As the project manager, you must obtain all required signoffs from the sponsor or client. This may
include the project plan, financial records, contracts, service level agreements, warranties and
support arrangements etc.

Learning Guide
Topic 4 Activities

Introduction
Research the answers to these questions in your own workplace. You can check your answers
against the guidelines below, but naturally your answers will vary depending on your workplace.
Questions
1. What steps do you need to follow to close a project in your workplace?
Answer:
2. How will you go about identifying why cost differences occurred in your project?
Answer:
3. What are your company’s policies on document management?
Answer:
4. What resources are left over from your project and what will you do with them?

Learning Guide
Answer:
5. How will you motivate your team to return to their normal duties?
Answer:
6. What will you put in your final report?
Answer:
Check your answers

Question 1
Identify the steps from the list below that are relevant to your project:
 complete final deliverables
 obtain stakeholder acceptance and signoff
o hold end of project meeting to get feedback
o was it a success or failure?
 write and issue final report
o document project results and achievements of team
o complete project accounts
o hand over project files
 evaluate the project
o conduct a review of project lessons
o evaluate the team and performance

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 release all resources
o physical resources
o reassign the remaining project team
Question 2
First identify each area of cost in which there was a substantial difference between budget and
actual costs. (It is unlikely to be productive chasing a 3% difference in an item that is 1% of your
budget.)
Then establish why the differences occurred. To do this, revisit project schedules and reports and
check with suppliers about differences between quotes and invoices. This process will help you to
identify areas of budgeting or cost control that you or other project managers can improve on for
future projects.
Question 3
Your company may or may not have policies on what documents need to be preserved and
archived, or filed electronically, and for how long they need to be retained before being
destroyed. If not you will need to decide what to keep, how to keep it, and for how long. Be sure
to make these decisions in consultation with the project sponsor and stakeholders.
Question 4
Depending on the size of your project you may have a small or large amount of resources to deal
with when the project ends. You need to decide if they would be useful to your organisation and if
so will the cost of keeping them be in proportion to their value and ease or otherwise of obtaining
them again in the future. If you decide not to keep resources you will need to sell them, give them
away or otherwise dispose of them.
Question 5
The issue here will depend on the length of the project, the differences between the project
team’s normal job and the project tasks, their amount of involvement in the project, and the
resulting impact of returning to their normal position.
Question 6
Take the information from the above sections and incorporate them into a final report on your
project. Add extra information such as actual budgets and other outcomes (such as improved staff
skills) that were achieved as part of the project.
Activity 2: Quiz
Use this quiz to check your knowledge of the project finalisation stage.
Repeat this quiz until you have answered all questions correctly.
Question 1:

Learning Guide
If a project is cancelled part way through what should a project manager do?
1. find someone to blame

2. close and finalise the project
3. hide any failures on your part
4. wrap things up as fast as possible
Question 2:
At the close of a project the project deliverables and actual deliverables should be compared. True
or false?
1. True
2. False
Question 3:
All unused equipment from a project should be sold to fund further projects. True or false?
1. True
2. False
Question 4:
What should be done with sensitive project documentation?
1. All documentation should be securely stored.

2. All documentation should be destroyed.
3. Non-reusable documentation should be destroyed and reusable documentation should be
securely stored.
4. Non-reusable documentation should be archived and reusable documentation should be
securely stored.
Question 5:
Unpaid contractor fees should be rolled over into the next project contract. True or false?
1. True
2. False
Question 6:
What should be done with staff on the project team when the project is completed? (Select all
correct answers.)
1. assign staff to new roles where possible

2. return staff to their previous roles

Learning Guide
3. find new work for contractors
4. roll all temporary staff into new projects
Question 7:
Which of the following items should be included in the projects closing report? (Select all correct
answers.)
1. deliverables compared with actual deliverables

2. do deliverables meet client/stakeholder requirements
3. what changes in deliverables occurred
4. how will the system be maintained
Question 8:
You should obtain client/stakeholder signoff on which of the following documents? (Select all
correct answers.)
1. financial records
2. project team communications
3. service level agreements
4. client/stakeholder feedback

Learning Guide
Topic 5 Review the Project
The project is now over and finalised. However, an important last step is to thoroughly evaluate
the project. As the manager of the project you should conduct a review of the lessons learnt from
conducting the project and evaluate the project team’s performance. A good way of doing this is
to hold end of project meeting to get feedback from all stakeholders. The fundamental question to
ask is: Was the project a success or failure and why?

1. initiate phase
2. plan phase
3. organise phase
4. control phase
5. close phase.
This reading takes a close look at some of the close phase.

Define the Develop detailed Obtain Lead and Complete final
overall project task list necessary support the deliverables
goal resources team
Identify all Estimate all task Recruit Establish control Write and issue
stakeholders, times and all necessary tools and final report,
their needs and costs personnel methods close the
over project files
necessary
corrective
actions
milestones
constraints, project plan and with distribute status project
assumptions and obtain approval stakeholders and
Learning Guide
risks from all necessary reports
stakeholders parties
Hold an end of project meeting

A meeting should be held with the project team, client/sponsor and appropriate stakeholders to
formally conclude the project. You should include in this meeting a formal or informal review of
the project, documenting things that went right or wrong, identifying strengths and weaknesses of
the project and the project management processes. It is important to identify techniques or
processes that worked especially well, or especially poorly, so that this information is available for
use on future projects.
For the final project meeting to be effective, consider the following issues:
 agree on the purpose and scope of the meeting
 list what the project should have achieved against what was actually achieved
 discuss what caused differences between what should have occurred and what actually
occurred
 document the lessons that have been learned that would be of benefit to future projects
 document any remaining work required to close the project.
Was the project a success or failure?

Sometimes it is obvious the project was a total success. In other cases the project is a total failure.
However, in many cases, the lines between success and failure are small and not always apparent.
For example, how successful is a project that has been completed on time and has delighted the
client, but which is significantly over budget resulting in a financial loss to your company?
How successful is a project that has been completed on time and within budget but which only
meets 80% of the business requirements or has been downsized to achieve these outcomes?
What lessons may have been learned along the way?
It is important to decide up-front what criteria you will use to determine whether a project is a
success or a failure. If an agreement is reached with the sponsor on what success means, the
project team can be evaluated against those criteria. As project manager, you should first rate the
project team against those criteria, and then take the recommendation to the sponsor for
validation.
Evaluate the project team and its performance

If the project was large by your organisation’s standards, it may be appropriate to conduct
performance reviews after the project is completed. In this case, as project manager, you evaluate
your project team members and their performance. In turn, you are evaluated by the project
sponsor or a member of the organisation’s management team.
The team may be rated as a whole and then team members use the team rating as input into a
personal performance review. Alternatively, the team members may have individual reviews

Learning Guide
based on their contributions only. There should, however, be some link between team and
individual performance.
This process can help identify the skills staff possess and how best to use those skills in future
projects.
Document project lessons

Completing a project deliverable does not mean that the jobs of the project manager or project
team members are over. You, as project manager, need to complete reports concerning any issues
you encountered. Include suggestions on how you feel these issues could have been prevented or
better handled. It’s a good idea to ask your team members to complete a similar report too. That
way, you have all the information you need to make a comprehensive report.
You will then review the performance of the overall project against the original project plan,
looking at resource usage, costs, timings and the end result. As well as performance criteria,
examine any issues that will benefit future projects through, for example, lessons learnt and
capacity building in the organisation through improved skills, etc.
The documentation produced by the project review process is only valuable if it is used to improve
current and future projects. This is only possible if clear documentation processes are followed.
Consider the following:
 Are there standard template documents used to record project review information?
 What sign-off process is required before this documentation can be made available to
other projects?
 Does the documentation include material that may be of a private or sensitive nature that
should not be made available to other project teams?
 How is the documentation going to be stored for easy access by others?
Once the review documentation and all other project documentation is complete and
appropriately stored your project should be closed. You may now have to organise how you are
going to be redeployed. Perhaps you will return to your normal role or you might have another
project to commence.

Learning Guide
Topic 5 Activities

Introduction
Research the answers to these questions in your own workplace. You can check your answers
against the guidelines below, but naturally your answers will vary depending on your workplace.
Questions
1. Was your workplace project a success or failure?
Answer:
2. Against what criteria will you evaluate your project team?
Answer:
3. What lessons have you learned from your workplace project?
Answer:
Check your answers

Question 1

Learning Guide
Take a constructive, unbiased look at your project and document why your project was a success
or a failure against a range of measures appropriate to the project. This information will form an
important part of your project report.
Question 2
You will find that you can come up with a large range of measures against which you could
evaluate your project team. These measures need to be developed in relation to the tasks that the
team or team members carried out. These criteria may also vary depending on whether you are
evaluating the team as a whole or individually.
Question 3
List all the issues that arose during your workplace project and identify the lessons that you have
learnt.
Use this quiz to check your knowledge of the review project stage.
Repeat this quiz until you have answered all questions correctly.
Activity 2: Quiz
Question 1:
Which of the following methods would be the best way to collect feedback at the end of a project?
1. hold an end of project meeting

2. send out questionnaires to all project participants
3. send an email to everyone to ask if they have comments to make
4. get each member of the project team to write a closing report
Question 2:
Against what criteria will you evaluate the project?
1. the criteria that highlight the projects successes

2. the criteria that highlight the projects failures
3. criteria established once the project is complete
4. criteria established during the planning phase
Question 3:
Why is it important to include lessons learned in the project report?
1. so the sponsor can review these

2. for future project teams to use as part of their planning
3. to show that you have done a detailed project review
Learning Guide
4. to highlight where the project went wrong
Question 4:
What is the main reason processes are reviewed at the end of a project?
1. so that stakeholder acceptance can be obtained

2. so that team members can be acknowledged and thanked for their efforts
3. to check that the project outcomes have been achieved
4. because analysis of past experiences can allow processes to be adapted and improved
Question 5:
What is the most effective means of measuring the success of a project?
1. analyse the end of project budget

2. determine if the client/stakeholders are happy with the projects end results
3. collect the project teams feedback on their task goals
4. compare what was actually achieved by the project with what the project was planned to
achieve
Question 6:
Which of the following projects was the most successful?
1. all project goals were achieved and the project budget was exceeded by 10%
2. half of the project goals were achieved and the project expenditure was 35% under budget
3. the project team is happy with the result, the project expenditure is 20% under budget and
70% of the project goals were achieved
4. 90% of the project goals were achieved and the project expenditure was 30% over budget
Question 7:
It is important to decide up-front what criteria you will use to determine whether a project is a
success or a failure. True or false?
1. True
2. False
Question 8:
Why should the performance of project team members be evaluated? (Select all correct answers.)
1. to identify staff skills for use in future projects

2. to remove staff from projects roles
3. to better allocate staff roles
4. to identify areas of professional development

Learning Guide
Question 9:
When evaluating the project team’s performance both the individual and team should be
evaluated? True or false?
1. True
2. False
Question 10:
How can the project review process become a part of risk management? (Select all correct
answers.)
1. a more accurate budget history can be created to help future project improve their budget
estimations to prevent over-expenditure
2. the suitability of staff in various project roles can be better determined for use in future
projects
3. the project planning phase can be reused in future projects
4. future projects can use the lessons learnt from a completed project to help protect against
problems being repeated

Learning Guide
References
Department of Education and Training 2008 Learning Guide from the BSBPGM510A Toolbox on
Equella.
H. Kerzner and F Saladis, “Project Management Workbook”, 2006.
Project Management Institute, “The Project Management Body of Knowledge”, 5th edition, 2013.


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BSBPMG522

Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................. 2

Bsbpmg522 Learning Guide V1

Introduction to Project Management

What is project management?

General management skills

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What makes a good project manager?

The 5 phases in a project

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Major activities that occur during each project phase

Initiate Plan Organise Control Close

Topic 1 Define the Project

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The things you will find in a project scope document

Key sections of a scope document

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Sample scope document

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Phase Dates/Time Notes

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Department: General Manager Date_____/_____/_____

Use the scope document during the whole project

Internal and external stakeholders

Examples of internal stakeholders are as follows:

External stakeholders can include:

The impact stakeholders have on a project

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Project reporting requirements

Relationship to other projects

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Activity 1: In Class Project

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Activity 2: Workplace Activities

2. What concerns may these stakeholders raise?

4. What are the reporting requirements for your project?

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5. Does your project have a relationship with any other project?

6. How does your project fit with your organisation’s objectives?

Check your answers

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What is the main job of the project manager?

1. identify project tasks

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People who are involved in or affected by project activities are

What is a project sponsor?

1. a company financially supporting then project

All stakeholders sign-off on the project outcomes. True or false?

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1. project team meetings

Project objectives should be aligned with

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The 5 phases in a project

Major activities that occur during each project phase

Initiate Plan Organise Control Close

The plan phase

Planning your project

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Estimating task duration

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Developing a project schedule

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Department: General Manager Date___/_/___